Conservative-Libertarian split: Liberals get it, conservatives don't
By W. James Antle III
web posted October 13, 2003
The truth is out of the bag: U.S. conservatives have conceded
defeat in the battle for limited government and constitutionalism
and have decided to change the subject. But the American right's
flagging commitment to containing the state's ambitions comes at
a price. It will be paid in lost liberty, smothered wealth creation
and possibly irreversible changes in what it means to be a
modern American conservative and what the project of
conservatism can hope to accomplish.
Libertarians have primarily identified themselves as operationally
members of the political right since the end of World War II.
Today this broad coalition is in serious trouble, as many who
think of themselves as libertarian do not identify with
conservatives at all and growing numbers of them are finding
much to identify with on the left. They are not just deserting
conservative Republicans for the Libertarian Party. Some
libertarians in good standing are actually thinking of voting
Democratic.
Noah Shatchman is the latest pundit to point all this out. In a
piece that appeared in the web edition of The American
Prospect on October 7, the noted commentator on defense,
politics and technology introduced readers to libertarians who
are growing increasingly restive within the Republican Party.
Some of them, like 25-year-old blogger and Institute for
Humane Studies staff member Alina Stefanescu, could once
legitimately be described as right-wingers. Today, they are
steeling themselves for their 2004 presidential vote. The
candidate who looks most attractive to them is not President
George W. Bush – it's none other than the former Vermont
governor who has energized the most antiwar and anti-Bush
elements of the left and invited comparisons to George
McGovern, Howard Dean.
Why? Because instead of smaller government, free market
economics and fidelity to the Constitution, these libertarians
associate conservatives and Bush's Republican Party with an
invade-and-democratize foreign policy, modest tax cuts
accompanied by large-scale deficit spending, a growing welfare
state and civil liberties threats in the name of national security.
Libertarians believe in minimal government and maximum
individual freedom. For them, their association with the GOP and
the broader right was a means to an end. If the right and the
Republicans change in ways less conducive to their goals, the
means no longer serve the end.
One weakness of Shatchman's otherwise solid piece is that
while he does cite some of the election results that bolster his
point about conservative Republicans having to worry about
libertarian defections (to the Libertarian Party, at least), he draws
a fairly inside-baseball crowd of movement libertarians for his
quotes. The fact that the majority Shatchman's sources are
friends has elicited criticism from such big establishment
libertarian names as Glenn Harlan "Instapundit" Reynolds and
former Reason editor Virginia Postrel. Blogger Will Wilkinson
quipped, "If all libertarians are blogging, Dean-leaning,
Washington, DC libertarians, who at one point or another were
Koch Fellows and/or have worked at the Cato Institute, then
that might really throw a wrench in an election."
Fair enough. But are libertarian outlets, ranging from the
Washington state-based Liberty magazine to science fiction
writer L. Neil Smith's Libertarian Enterprise webzine, that aren't
part of the young DC libertarian social circle any less anti-Bush
(and increasingly anti-Republican)? Postrel herself at one point
rooted for the Democrats to retain the Senate during the 2002
election.
More significant than Shatchman's piece is where it ran. The
American Prospect was more or less founded to revive
liberalism as a fighting faith. The left is becoming aware of the
emerging conservative-libertarian schism while the right for the
most part remains in denial. On those rare occasions that
conservatives pay attention to libertarian discontent at all, the
following reactions are common. Many rank-and-file
conservatives profess to be happy to be rid of all those "drug
addicts." John J. Miller urged libertarians to get over themselves
and vote Republican in an op-ed piece following the midterm
elections, ignoring the fact more would if Republicans more
reliably championed the types of policies he said votes for
Libertarians in close races were endangering. Michael Medved
and other commentators ridiculed them as "losertarians."
Any reaction will do except an acknowledgement that
conservatives have to some extent lost their way. Now, I think
libertarians will come to regret it if they go too far in making
common cause with the left. I think Colby Cosh is right that the
nanny statist impulses on the grassroots left today are greater
than any corresponding authoritarian urges among non-Beltway
conservatives. In terms of practical politics, presidential coattails
may not be what they used to be, but they still exist. Given this
fact, it may be tempting fate to vote in a Democratic president
and hope for divided government. It is even more clearly playing
with fire to assume that a more ideological Democrat like
Howard Dean fresh from an upset victory would behave the
same in that environment as the more malleable Bill Clinton, who
faced off against an energized GOP and had a compelling
interest in rescuing his presidency from the debacle of 1994.
It's also worth noting the following irony. Small-l libertarians who
could not bring themselves to vote Republican in 1996 or 2000
had Harry Browne, the big-l Libertarian Party presidential
candidate, as an alternative. He offered voters the great deal of
trading in their favorite federal program in exchange for never
having to pay income tax again. Dean's policy gambit is
practically the opposite. He promises that he can give the
American people nationalized health care in exchange for them
paying Clinton-era marginal income tax rates. This is an
acceptable libertarian alternative?
But conservatives have a lot to lose as well by jettisoning their
small-government principles, and it isn't just a few close Senate
and gubernatorial races with pesky third-party candidates on the
ballot. Big government conservatism is folly. It promises to
achieve meaningful conservative reforms without getting bogged
down in politically disastrous attempts to cut popular government
programs, but it ultimately cannot deliver.
The welfare state directly undermines the family and civil society
by competing for its resources and usurping its functions. This is
not just true of harmful entitlements aimed at the poor that in
some cases reward bad behavior. Even such popular
entitlements that benefit the middle class as Social Security have
had their impact on the family. David Frum asked in Dead Right
if it were realistic to expect the family to survive in its pre-Social
Security form in a post-Social Security world. It is even less so
to expect the same once a more advanced form of welfare
statism has taken hold. Has the welfare state produced the kind
of society conservatives want in France, the Netherlands,
Sweden or even Great Britain?
Nor does big government conservatism make economic, or even
basic arithmetic, sense. Supply-side theory is far more nuanced
than many of its latter-day political practitioners make it out to
be. Yes, lower marginal tax rates increase economic growth by
enhancing incentives to produce while reducing incentives to
conceal income from the tax collector. The latter can partially or
wholly offset revenue losses from the tax cut depending on the
circumstances, while the former inevitably leads to greater
revenues over time. But this is not the same as saying every tax
cut, or even every cut in marginal tax rates, will necessarily
increase government revenues, much less increase them enough
to keep up with rapid government expansion. Even the Laffer
curve assumes a certain point at which lower tax rates reduce
revenues – it is irrational to base economic policy on
approaching this point while continuing to increase government
spending.
Government spending has to be paid for somehow. If it won't be
paid for by taxation, it will be paid for through borrowing (which
itself can amount to nothing more than deferred taxation) or
inflation. Both of these methods take resources from the
economy in their own way just as surely as taxes.
Even the political justification isn't entirely accurate. If ever the
political and economic conditions were right for big government
conservatism, it was during Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Marginal tax rates were further out on the Laffer curve. The
economy was being strangled by price controls, regulations, tax
rates and inflation. The Reagan tax cuts helped grow the
economy, and revenues continued to increase even as tax rates
fell while GDP expanded. But government spending remained
out of control, rising even faster than revenues, resulting in
deficits. And Reagan was less of a big spender than either Bush.
The public liked big government plus low taxes while it lasted.
But when they were ready to deal with the deficit – and when
they could associate deficits, albeit largely erroneously, with the
1990-91 recession – one of those had to give. With two big-
spending parties but only one party (partially) committed to
avoiding tax increases, it was the marginal tax rates that gave. On
the bright side, they have not yet returned to their pre-Reagan
levels. The downside is that the most conservative president
since Reagan has been unable to reduce them to their pre-1990
levels. Without spending restraint, politics dictated that taxes be
increased.
Cutting spending is tough when government lavishes tax dollars
on so many things that Americans like. But giving up on limited
government will require conservatives to give up on a lot of other
things they want to accomplish as well. Libertarians are already
beginning to give up on conservatives. Will the general American
right as we knew it for decades simply give up at its moment of
opportunity? Whether the conservative-libertarian split can be
resolved will go a long way toward answering that question.
Even some liberals are starting to get this. How come some
conservatives don't?
W. James Antle III is a senior editor for Enter Stage Right.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com